Lil Kleine

Jorik Scholten was born on October 15, 1994, on the Nieuwmarkt ,Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At the age of one, he was operated on his back because he had leukemia. He was raised in the red light district (de wallen) and moves to Amsterdam-East at the age of seven with his father, after their parents were divorced. After that he doesn’t have much contact with his mother anymore. Jorik signs up at a casting agency and starts to practice rapping, acting and dancing. He can be seen a few times in television series.

One day rapper Lange Frans (well known Dutch rapper) sat on a cafe terrace on the Nieuwmarkt. The young Jorik passed by with his mother and little brother and he mentioned to Lange Frans that he could rap and dance, they talked about Lange Frans’ new track ‘Testament’ that Jorik really liked. Lange Frans asked him if he really knew the track by hearth and Jorik was invited to participate in the videoclip. Lange Frans praises Lil Kleine: “He only has to hear a song once and he knows the lyrics by hearth.”

The rapper works together with ”Spacekees” in the duo ”ZoVaderZoZoon” (like father like son). On the occasion of his appearance on Appelsap (hiphop festival) on july 22, 2012, he released the EP ‘Tuig van de richel’ (scum of the earth) that consisted of 5 tracks, together with Appelsap, shoes shop Patta and rapper Faberyayo (De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig). The productions are made by SABeats, Yung Felix, Meneer de Eel and FS Green. The raps stand out because of the rough, direct lyrics.

Lil kleine gets to be well known at the larger audience after his contribution to the TV show ‘op volle toeren’, by Ali B. in February 2013. In that show, Lil Kleine adapts the song ”Ik voel me zo verdomd alleen” from 1984 to his own style and performs this in front of the original singer of the song, Danny de Munk.

Rotjoch (presenter of 101Barz) noticed the potential of the rapper and invited him to a 101Barz session. It was put online on May 31, 2013 on the YouTube channel of 101Barz, where it received 1,8 million views. One month later the rapper from Amsterdam throws the track ”Verliefd op je moeder” (in love with your mother) online on TopNotch where it received 4,4 million views.

After that, the rapper changed his image. He wanted to get a harder appearance and takes on the image of a street rascal. He tries to make his lyrics more shocking: teenage girls on his lap, saying he doesn’t give a shit and so on.

After the release of the track ”Drank & Drugs” (booze and drugs) with Ronnie Flex, he got the attention he was looking for. The track rises to number one in the charts in the Netherlands and from the moment he can’t be ignored anymore. When the rapper yells at a concert that he wants to see a middle finger in the air for police and the law, he gets arrested by the police as ordered by the mayor of Hilversum, Pieter Broertjes. After that he was invited by the late night show RTL Late Night and they confirmed his image as a street rascal. His mother also appeared in another interview with the TV show RTL Boulevard where she explained that her son only plays an act.

The rapper scores hit after hit and starts to earn big money. A large number of people think he behaves arrogantly and are annoyed by his bragging about his money. Because of that, the rapper is often thrown beer at his performances. Whatever you may think of this rapper, his music undeniably sounds good and his flow, with his Amsterdam accent, is on point. We are going to hear a lot of this enormous talent in the future.

On May 26 Lil Kleine released his second album called ”Alleen” , listen to it on Spotify.